Page 3515 - Week 11 - Thursday, 19 September 2013
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At a finer grain level we are also planning for the future of our districts and our town centres. In March this year we embarked on a strategic planning process for Canberra city through the city plan. Mr Smyth says, “We need to have a discussion about what happens in the centre of our city, around London Circuit, around Vernon Circle.” That is exactly what the city plan is. That is exactly what the city to the lake project is all about. The city to the lake project has received endorsement through a peer-reviewed national competition and has won an Australian award for urban design excellence. This highlights the very significant work that this government is doing to paint and realise a vision for the future of our city centre as the true heart of Canberra.
The city plan will provide the long-term spatial and strategic framework for growth and change in the city centre for 2030 and beyond. Building a vibrant and viable city centre will come from increasing our residential population to deliver a day and night time economy and associated cultural and commercial life. The city centre has real capacity to meet anticipated future residential, commercial, retail and community facility needs. This means there are real opportunities to revitalise and rejuvenate existing areas and to provide new areas for growth and development.
Beyond the city centre, the government’s master planning program is developing forward-looking policy frameworks for our own town and group centres, setting out how particular areas should develop and redevelop into the future, establishing agreed community objectives and defining what is important about a place and how its character and quality can be conserved, improved and enhanced.
We are backing all this up with action on the ground. My colleague Minister Rattenbury will outline how government investment in maintenance and upgrades of our public spaces and infrastructure is addressing and implementing these planning strategies.
Our actions are also protecting and improving our natural environment, such as our urban waterways and lakes. The importance of our local waterways in providing urban amenity and recreational and community activity cannot be underestimated. We are investing heavily in urban ponds that are helping to protect areas such as Lake Burley Griffin from stormwater pollutants like nutrients, sediment and bacteria and improve water quality.
Since 2008 the government has embarked upon a comprehensive program of development of urban ponds in the Sullivans Creek catchment in the city’s inner north. These ponds are having measurable and real positive impacts on our waterways. They are bringing together the community in school and other groups as volunteers to work with the government to deliver, maintain and enhance these ponds’ infrastructure.
These are the types of measures that the government is implementing on the ground. We are strengthening our urban framework through our heritage protection processes. We back that up with a vibrant annual heritage festival that brings large sections of our community together to celebrate our varied past and our common future.
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